Record Speed Recycling

April 29, 2013 By Leave a Comment

This past weekend, we had another great Volunteer Saturday at ITT Tech’s Tarentum campus.  Clocking in at record speeds, we ran diagnostic triage and Edubuntu imaging on a total of 98 computers from 8AM – 4PM.

We owe a special thanks to Kim Coles of the County of Westmoreland Mac Users Group (COWMUG) for coming in extra early to run the welcome table. Also, a big thanks to Debbie and Mark Neuherz for transporting all of the computers to a new storage cage site in Pittsburgh Mills.

You can sign up for future volunteer work days with Computer Reach through our Pittsburgh Cares page. We are a new Non-Profit Priority Partner with Pittsburgh Cares. We’re looking forward to reaching a broader audience to help us reach our goals.

Check out the video and say “Hello” to 22 hard-working volunteers that beat the clock on a beautiful Saturday donating their time and talents. Thank you all!

 

Filed Under: Computer Reach News, computers, donated computers, electronics, electronics recycling, ITT, pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Volunteering, PittsburghCares.org, refurbished computers, volunteering, volunteers Tagged With: , , , ,

Happy Earth Day!

April 22, 2013 By Leave a Comment

There are many ways to celebrate Earth Day. You can plant some trees in your community, do litter clean up, or just try to conserve your own energy use. You can also take advantage of electronics recycling!

“In 2011, the U.S. electronics recycling industry processed 3 to 4 million tons of used and end-of-life electronics equipment. More than 70 percent of the collected gadgets can be recycled, recovering items such as plastic, steel, aluminum, copper, gold and silver to be used in new products.”

A few Earth Day Electronics Recycling Events:

Monday, April 22
Free Community Electronic Recycling Earth Day 2013
McGinnis Sisters Special Foods Store – Route 228

Saturday, April 27
Electronics Collection Event – Allegheny County
Natrona Heights – (One Municipal Drive)
Hosted by Harrison Township (Contact Faith Payne 724-226-1393)

Ongoing
Goodwill Computer Donation Center

Accepted devices at most e-recycling facilities include: printers, toner and ink jet cartridges, desktop and notebook PCs and servers, monitors and TVs (CRT, LCD, LED or Plasma), mice, keyboards, computer speakers, external devices (CD/DVD burners or scanners, zip drives, hard drives, wireless routers, switches, modems), small kitchen appliances (mixers, toasters, blenders, microwave), stereo equipment and speakers (including car stereos), hair dryers, curling irons, video game consoles, electronic cables, digital cameras, copy machines, fax machines, DVD players, cell phones, telephones, PDAs and VCRs.

Filed Under: computers, donated computers, electronics, electronics recycling, goodwill, pittsburgh Tagged With: , ,

Upcoming Volunteer Day & PittsburghCares.org

April 16, 2013 By Leave a Comment

We’re having another big volunteer work day next Saturday, April 27th from 8:00am – 4:00pm, with most of the work taking place in the morning. We have 2 objectives for the day: imaging and moving.  Ubuntu imaging will take place over a PXE Server system at ITT Tech. Box moving of over 100 computers will take place all morning. Please use our WhenIsGood form to fill out the hours you plan on helping out. You’ll also find more event details and directions there.

If you plan to attend, please sign in at our brand new Pittsburgh Cares site (please note: you’ll need to initiate a new password on your first login).

In a move to scale up our volunteer operations at Computer Reach we have joined PittsburghCares.orgforces with Pittsburgh Cares, an online volunteer coordination portal. The mission of Pittsburgh Cares is, “to maximize the impact of our regional nonprofit partners by mobilizing volunteers and engaging the community.”

By partnering with the broader volunteer community around Pittsburgh our Computer Reach members will see other opportunities to be involved with community outreach all over Western PA.

Filed Under: charity, community outreach, Computer Reach News, electronics, electronics recycling, pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Volunteering, PittsburghCares.org, recycling, technology, volunteering, volunteers Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Back with Duquesne University Students

March 28, 2013 By Leave a Comment

We had another great work day with volunteer students from Duquesne University at the Goodwill Apple “Annex” at 2400 Carson Street on the South Side of Pittsburgh. This video shows our 7th week, working on recycling the 50th computer with the students! This has been a great partnership over the course of the Spring semester. We hope all the students are learning about computer components, responsible recycling and the e-waste problem. Many thanks to instructor Loraine Sauchin for coordinating all of this.

You can read about our previous days with the students and enjoy videos here, here and here.

Filed Under: community outreach, donated computers, Duquesne University, electronics recycling, pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Volunteering, recycling, volunteering, volunteers Tagged With: , , , , ,

Volunteer Work Day at ITT Tech Tarentum

February 27, 2013 By Leave a Comment

 

On Saturday February 23rd, we had our first volunteer work day at ITT Tech in Tarentum, PA. You may have seen our earlier post asking readers to sign up to volunteer with us in this new space the last Saturday of each month. You can still sign up here!

We started in our new space with a very productive day. We unloaded 81 Apple computer boxes from our U-Haul truck at Construction Junction and then loaded 116 Linux computer boxes for for transport back to ITT refurbishing and imaging production work.

  • We had 26 volunteers attend.
  • They logged 146 man-hours in one day.
  • We ate 10 pizzas and drank well over 36 water bottles!

Many thanks to Director Joshua Joseph, Computer Science Director Bill Gano and Career Services Director Bart Blum for great logistical support today.

Check out the video below.

Filed Under: computers, donated computers, electronics, electronics recycling, ITT, Pittsburgh Volunteering, recycling, refurbished computers, volunteering, volunteers Tagged With: , , , , ,

Week 4 with Duquesne University Volunteers

February 26, 2013 By Leave a Comment

 

This past Friday, we had our fourth workday with volunteers from Duquesne University. You can read about weeks one, two and three in these posts.

On February 22nd, We had 2 faculty members and 7 students working at our warehouse. We went beyond de-manufacturing and showed the students our procedures for imaging Macs with Deploy Studio. Many thanks to the students for helping to load 50+ boxes for movement between our South Side and Point Breeze recycling locations.

Inspired to help? Sign up to volunteer with us on the last Saturday of each month!

Filed Under: computers, Duquesne University, electronics, electronics recycling, pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Volunteering, refurbished computers, volunteering Tagged With: , , , ,

New Saturday Volunteer Time

February 22, 2013 By Leave a Comment

We’re very excited to announce a new year-round site for recycling on the last Saturday of every month. You can now join us at ITT Technical Institute in Tarentum (behind the Pittsburgh Mills Mall).

 

Several people have requested advanced notice of our Saturday recycling events so they can set their calendars and commit to a few hours on a weekend far in advance. Now, with this new location, you can do just that! Visit this poll to sign up for a date and time to volunteer that works for you, all the way up through December 2013! You may come back to edit these volunteering times as much as needed. Our leadership team is notified when any times are chosen or removed, so there is no need to email or call us.

Our first volunteer workday event at ITT will be this Saturday February 23  from 10am – 4pm. We will be sorting and fixing 200 computers !

WHERE: 100 Pittsburgh Mills Circle, Tarentum, PA 15084 (724) 274-1400

WHEN: Choose “When It Is Good” by click on the times to highlight them in bright green. Registering through the poll helps us prepare lunch and all day refreshments.
The ITT campus has free parking and is connected to the back of Pittsburgh Mills, a great mall with food and shopping and entertainment for all ages. If you need more information on volunteering with Computer Reach, contact Dave Sevick at 724-779-0099 or email sevick@computereach.com.

See you all soon!

Filed Under: Computer Reach News, donated computers, electronics, electronics recycling, ITT, pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Volunteering, recycling, refurbished computers, technology, volunteering, volunteers Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Help Put Computers in Students’ Hands

February 20, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Studetns at BJWLAs of this month, our Pittsburgh area volunteers have refurbished for re-use 4,051 Computers! This is an amazing number that we are so proud to share with you. But, we always want more! That’s why we can use your help to fund several local school projects.

When we place a computer in a school, each computer serves 5 students every day.

By re-using equipment, rather than buying new, each computer we recycle reduces our carbon footprint.

If you’re interested in helping with a donation, or helping by donating your time as a volunteer, call our Executive Director Dave Sevick for more details. You can also donate directly on our website.  YES, we are a 501c3 charity!

Thanks again for all the volunteering and funding support as we continue to grow.

About this photo:
This picture is a still from a video that shows our Computer Reach team delivering a total of 11 computers to a Family Resources site at BJWL in the Hill District of Pittsburgh on August 17, 2011. LaRay Moton is the Site coordinator and Jamayia Moore is the site supervisor. The kids were really great and excited to get the new technology. Volunteer Marty Swartz deserves credit for taking the time to help organize and deliver the computers to this site.

Filed Under: charity, community outreach, donated computers, electronics recycling, fundraising, literacy, pittsburgh, recycling, refurbished computers, volunteering Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Meet our new Team Members

February 13, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Peter Carras, Director of Operations

Peter Carras, Director of Operations

We’d like to officially welcome Peter Carras to the Computer Reach team. Peter is now our Director of Operations. His duties include assisting with computer inventory, volunteer event logistics and serving as a right-hand-man to our leadership team.

Peter is a long time Apple enthusiast and Monroeville’s County Of Westmoreland Macintosh Users Group (COWMUG) leader, a University of Pittsburgh neuroscientist and has been a volunteer computer recycler with us for many years.

We’d also like to extend a warm welcome to Ted Rodgers, our new Director of Technology. Ted is a Unix expert and long time leader of the local Linux user group in Pittsburgh.  He is a University of Pittsburgh graduate and steady technical leader at our volunteer events.  He has special skills in large deployments of Linux via customized imaging

Ted Rodgers, Director of Technology

Ted Rodgers, Director of Technology

processes. Ted was also instrumental in forging our relationship with the Western PA Linux Users Group and the new ITT relationship (stay tuned for more news on that partnership later!).

We look forward to sharing more news of how Peter and Ted are helping Computer Reach meet our mission of saving the world, one recycled computer at a time.

 

 

Filed Under: Computer Reach News, electronics recycling, pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Volunteering, recycling, technology Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Day 1 with Duquesne University Volunteers

February 5, 2013 By Leave a Comment

We had our first day of work with volunteers from Duquesne University on Friday. Five students from Lorraine Sauchin’s Elements of Computer Science class came to the warehouse to help us demanufacture computers for reuse. They were joined by our CRC Goodwill recycling regulars.

We look forward to having Duquesne students with us every Friday this semester. We are very grateful for their help! If you’d like to volunteer your time with us, please complete the contact form on our website.

Filed Under: computers, donated computers, electronics, electronics recycling, goodwill, pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Volunteering, recycling, volunteering, volunteers Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
«Older Posts